What's the talk of education?

Irish universities tumble in rankings

I am sure on salary levels we would be well inside the top 100, but then we like paying our educators huge salaries for failure.

– hedzog, politics.ie

Irish educators actually deliver the best value for money education system in the EU, despite student funding being 1/3 less per capita than in the UK and being below the OECD average. What has caused Irish universities’ drop in rankings is almost exclusively a direct result of further cuts in funding and the resultant rise in staff/student ratios. So you are basically talking uninformed nonsense.

– Chrisco, politics.ie

Holland looks more and more tempting for post-graduate study. – daithimacgroin, boards.ie

Very disappointing news. Irish universities need to take urgent steps to reverse this trend. – CianHughes, Twitter

We cannot deny the standards have dropped to an all-time low anymore. Are these academics more interested in lining their own pockets? Ireland has a truly terrible reputation for research worldwide. Was your degree worth the paper it was written on? – TheyKnowMyIP, boards.ie

Given Ireland’s size compared to other similar-sized/slightly-larger western countries like Scandinavia, the university rankings are on par or better. Trinity College isn’t doing half bad. There is only so much one can do to compete with Harvard, Stanford and Caltech which have more researchers than some universities have students. These rankings are based on citations and citations of citations. Mainly. – noxqs, boards.ie

College is big business, son. Certification for the masses = $$$. College is a business, why would it not work. A University is a place of research, not learning. It’s not rocket science. – They KnowMyIP, boards.ie

I don’t think it is a money-making racket, but one could argue that Irish universities suffer greatly from understaffing. The staff-student ratios in some fields/ institutions are nuts when compared to those in the UK. Behind this problem lies the many pay rises given to Irish university academics over the last decade or two – Irish academics are now much more expensive than British academics, so we can’t afford to employ as many staff. Irish universities are in an awkward corner because they need more lecturers at the new lower salary scales (say, one new appointment for every four existing). This would have an instant, positive impact on the ratings for Irish universities but would also allow all staff members more time to increase their research output, leading in a few years to further rating improvements.

But they can’t do this because they can’t afford them, and with student numbers set to rise and rise, the situation will only get worse until fees are introduced, with the necessary, finely-graduated grants system too of course. This IMHO is the solution and is far more likely to succeed than Tom Boland’s (HEA) coherent set of interlocking, mission-specific institutions blah blah blah – DeepSleeper, boards.ie

The Global Irish Forum

The omission of Irish universities from the the Global Irish Forum is worrying –Marlalbur, Twitter

There’s a big disconnect between what Irish universities teach and what companies are looking for in employees

– raytkelly, Twitter

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